Friday, July 24, 2009

On Hiatus

Followers of my blog will notice that my posts have been very spotty lately. This is primarily because of personal and family duties that are taking up almost all of my time.

Since I started my blog, there have been many many new blogs that are now covering the territory I once did - and doing so competently. Two you must read on a daily basis are the Infidel Bloggers Alliance and Weasel Zippers.

I will be back posting in full when the madness, and madness is the word, of the free world either is cured or swept away by the coming war when common courtesy, common decency and common sense returns.

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

American Intifada

Daniel Pipes has a very interesting ‘what if’ scenario on his blog that explores the consequences of an American Intifada. He does an excellent job offering the support for such a scenario but I disagree with some of his projected outcomes.

He begins his ‘what if’ scenario by describing an America that has been lulled into a false sense of security then rudely awakened by events.

The absence of large-scale terrorism prompted analysts smugly to conclude that law enforcement had prevailed; or that the Islamists had opted for non-violent means. It thus came as a great surprise in June 2008 when 51 bombs went off within a few hours in each of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia, killing over 800 people in schools, stores, and subways.

[I]dentical leaflets appeared near each of the bombings. Signed by Jihadis for Justice, a hitherto unknown group, the flyers called for replacing the Constitution with the Koran and bringing the country's foreign policy in line with Tehran's.

Building on the precedent of pro-Hamas and pro-Hezbollah demonstrations in mid-2006, Islamists and far-leftists brazenly supported the American intifada, punctuating their glorification of its "martyrs" with Ayatollah Khomeini's "Death to America" slogan. These messages echoed on Canadian campuses, especially ConcordiaUniversity in Montreal and York in Toronto. ……The violence became daily, ubiquitous, endemic, and routine, occurring in rural towns, upscale suburbs, and metropolitan centres, targeting private houses, restaurants, university buildings, gas stations, and electricity grids……Some terrorists avoided this ignominious fate by engaging in suicide attacks, usually accompanied by boastful Internet videos. In all, roughly 100,000 incidents meant an average 10,000 deaths and many times more injuries each year.

This is where I part with Pipes. If there were terrorist attacks in all 50 states, whether they killed 800 people of 800,000, the authorities will react by declaring a national emergency. These laws are on the books and can be initiated by the President.

New legislation signed on May 9, 2007, declares that in the event of a "catastrophic event", the President can take total control over the government and the country, bypassing all other levels of government at the state, federal, local, territorial and tribal levels, and thus ensuring total unprecedented dictatorial power.

Violence became “daily, ubiquitous, endemic, and routine” would not be tolerated in this country. Even if political authorities delayed by dragging their feet in the muck and mire of political correctness, the citizenry will most certainly demand that the authorities take control of their family and workplace security. Back to Pipes.

As its frequency increased, terrorists became less cautious, leading to many arrests and bulging prisons.

Pipes understands that arrests will be made but something more ominous will appear on the American landscape and arrests will only be a start. Muslim internment camps.

Jihadis for Justice relied on Iranian and Saudi patronage but no U.S. retaliation followed because, before acting, President Obama required proofs that would pass muster in a U.S. court of law, something the intelligence agencies could not provide.

This is not realistic. With hundreds of thousands of Americans dead and “10,000 deaths and many times more injuries each year” happening in this country, the urge will be to act first and ask questions later or the Administration would be replaced by the citizens. Inaction will not play well in Peoria.

As have been saying for some time, our political leaders will be responsible for this citizen reaction – attack someone, anyone – because they have not been told who the enemy is (the ideology of Islamism – not terrorists), who supports it (any country, organization or individual that promotes Sharia law), and a war plan explained to the citizens how we will identify multiple types of jihad the supporters of Islamism are using.

They need to properly identify the enemy and put us on a war footing immediately if we are to avoid a constitutional crisis in this country once the American Intifada begins.

And what of the rest of the world?

Drawing on the example of the Danish imams going international in 2005 with the Muhammad cartoons, American Muslim delegations travelled abroad to publicize their complaints, arousing vast emotional support by presenting themselves as an innocent but brutalized community. Majority Muslim states unanimously condemned Washington for "Islamophobia" and the U.N. General Assembly passed nearly weekly resolutions condemning U.S. practices, with only Australia, Israel, and Micronesia reliably voting with the Obama administration.

Of course, this appeasement would be expected. But I wonder if the average European will follow the dictates of their elitist leaders especially when they see the acts of terrorism committed on a daily basis in the US. They will be looking over their shoulders and demand that steps be taken against Muslims to prevent a European Intifada – or civil war.

Pre-intifada, terrorists such as Ahmed Ressam and Ghazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer exploited Canada's less stringent security environment as a base from which to attack the United States, a pattern that now continued. Repeated closings and crossing delays of the border with Canada followed, harming the Canadian economy and provoking widespread resentment.

Again, I disagree. If Islamists use Canada as a base of operations and it seriously affects the Canadian economy, I seriously doubt that Canadian citizens will allow that to happen.

Just as a Norwegian grocery store chain urged the boycott of Israeli products in 2002, so did it initiate the 2009 international anti-U.S. economic boycott. What began by marking American products with a red-white-blue sticker ended by dropping them all together. "Mecca Cola," "Beurger King," and Barbie doll replacements Fulla and Razanne, all created years before the American intifada began, were now joined by other Muslim replacements for their better-known U.S. equivalents. Inspired by the success of Ülker, a Turkish corporation long associated with Islamist causes, to replace Coca-Cola with its Cola Turka, other Islamist-affiliated companies commercially exploited anti-American sentiments. Rumblings of an Arab oil boycott along the lines of 1973-74 led to a surge in the price of energy, causing an economic recession, but structural changes in the oil market made such an effort too difficult to sustain

.

Perhaps. But we can mount our own boycotts of goods and services. There are products and services that world needs.

Then, almost as suddenly as it had started, the terrorist campaign ended in June 2012. A combination of draconian security measures, beefed-up intelligence capabilities, and a relentless focus on the pool of Islamist suspects led to a severe drop-off in terrorist capabilities. Battered by the experience, American Islamists realized the error of their tactics and decided to forego violence. Like their counterparts in Egypt, Syria, and Algeria, they took up lawful means and worked henceforth within the system.

First, this country will not roll over and take the Intifada for 4 years. The economy and the social fabric of America would be in ruins. The end of the Intifada will come long before that and Islamists realize that as of today they are making gains in establishing Shari law or at least adherence to it through the work of their useful idiots on the Left.

Azzedine Layachi of St. John'sUniversity further explained about Algeria that "The Islamist movement tried to challenge the state head on and it failed miserably. But Islamist sentiment has not been defeated. On the contrary, Islamists are now part and parcel of the political and cultural scene."] The ending of the four-year American intifada signalled, as in Algeria, the opening of a political battle over the country's future. Would the Constitution of 1787 remain in place, or would it be complemented or perhaps replaced by the Koran and the Shariah?

Saturday, July 04, 2009

Freedom is never free! -- 4th of July Tribute

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?Five signers were captured by the British as traitors and tortured before they died.

Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.

Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army, another had two sons captured.

Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year, he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later, he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.

Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.

Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more.

Standing talk straight, and unwavering, they pledged: "For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

They gave you and me a free and independent America. The history books never told you a lot about what happened in the Revolutionary War. We didn't fight just the British. We were British subjects at that time and we fought our own government!

Some of us take these liberties so much for granted, but we shouldn't.

So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July Holiday and silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid. Remember: Freedom is never free!

It's time we get the word out that patriotism is NOT a sin, and the Fourth of July has more to it than beer, picnics, and baseball games.

Some Not So Dumb Questions….

I’d like to have answers to these and why they were not considered as solutions to some of the problems we face today. I won’t hold my breath.

Yes, dumb questions – then again maybe not so dumb -- maybe just common sense.

First: Why not give the $850 million dollars of stimulus money directly to the people?

We have approximately 250 million people in this country. Let’s say a third of that population belongs to families. 250 million divided by 3 = about 84 million families. Divide $800 billion by 84 million families and you get about $9600 per family. Some of that will be used to pay off debt by the family but a lot would be used to purchase things, thus stimulating the economy directly.

Yeah, I know. One answer is that the government doesn’t give a crap about helping on controlling. But I wonder if there are economic reason – not political.

Second: We’ve spent less than 10 percent of the allocated stimulus money. Why?

BHO cried that if we didn’t stimulate the economy IMMEDIATELY we would have a disaster of unprecedented proportions. Yet, we have spent less than 10 percent of the $800 billion dollars allocated.

Has the Administration or Congress second thoughts? Did China more or less threaten to not buy the hundreds of billions of dollars of our stimulus debt? Or has it been just pure incompetence on the part of the bureaucracy?

Third: Why not give citizenship to illegal aliens if the serve in the US Armed Forces?

This is an idea right out of Robert Heinlein’s’ book Starship Troopers.

If an illegal alien enlists for 4 years (I did – not for 2 years at the time because I enlisted with a special arm of the Army – the Army Security Agency. This would be a special enlistment too) and is discharged honorably, he or she gains immediate citizenship.

You would think by serving four years honorably in the Army it would make a good citizen out of them. One plus is that they would have to learn English to serve properly.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Time for Some Common Sense on North Korea

During the Cold War with the USSR, NATO knew that there was little chance of repelling a Warsaw Pact invasion of Europe against an overwhelming number of conventional enemy forces. The Warsaw Pact armies greatly outnumbered NATO in just about every category of weapon and number of troops.

Yet, we were able to keep the big Russian bear out of Western Europe. And we did it with one simple threat.

If the USSR invaded Western Europe, we would use tactical nukes against their conventional forces. I know because I was one of those in US Army Europe that had the keys to the nukes and waited, 24/7, for the order to release them to NATO. And we had no reservations on using them.

The threat worked because the USSR knew that if we used tactical nukes they would respond with tactical nukes. Then we would respond with more and bigger tactical nukes quickly escalating to strategic ICBMs—and that would be all she wrote.

The Kremlin knew if a nuke exchange happened, their way of life would just as well end as ours. No winner. All losers.

Now we have a tin horn midget dictator who is blustering about starting a war if we touch his toys. The most obvious way and the one the Allies expect is an attack on South Korea. Specifically leveling Seoul which is a artillery shell distance from North Korea.

This fact has us all shaking in our boots.

But why. Jong is not Ahmadinejad or the Japanese in WWII- both of which are and were willing to commit national suicide.

Jong, and especially his generals, would not like to have their pretty little war toys removed from them. A threat like the one we used against the USSR will work just as well and keep Jong contained in his little asylum to rot.

The threat? Simple. If Jong lobs even one artillery shell at Soul or sends even one soldier across the DMZ, we will respond with tactical nukes to stop them and eliminate the artillery pieces that are suppose to be in the hundreds pointed at Seoul.

Jong is no suicide mania. A maniac, yes. Suicidal no. Or at least his generals aren’t and they want to keep their shiny toys.

So what the hell are we waiting for? Give him the ultimatum. Quit pussyfooting around.

BTW: China won’t respond if we use tactical nukes. They don’t want to lob strategic nukes at us and go to WWIII – at least not over North Korea.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Islamist Victory by 2020?

The holy war against the infidels being waged by al-Qaeda and other Islamic terror formations - will end in 2020 with the defeat of the West, predicts Author Fuad Hussein. His book ‘Al-Zarqawi - al-Qaeda's Second Generation' was published at the end of 2005.

Though a couple of years old, it might be an interesting exercise to see how his predictions turned out. But first, who is Fuad Hussein? As reported by Spiegel Online International, Hussein has not only spent time in prison with al-Zarqawi, but has also managed to make contact with many of the network's leaders. Based on correspondence with these sources, his book details the organization's master plan.

There must be something particularly trustworthy about the Jordanian journalist Fouad Hussein. After all, he has managed to get some of the the most sought after terrorists to open up to him. Maybe it helped that they spent time together in prison many years ago -- when Hussein was a political prisoner he successfully negotiated for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to be released from solitary confinement. Or is it because of the honest and direct way in which he puts his ideas onto paper? Whatever the reason, the result is that a film which Hussein made about al-Zarqawi has even been shown on al-Qaida affiliated Web sites. "That showed me that they at least felt understood," the journalist says.

Hussein explains the seven phases that al-Qaedahopes to establish to create an Islamic caliphate which the West will then be too weak to fight.

The First Phase Known as "the awakening" -- this has already been carried out and was supposed to have lasted from 2000 to 2003, or more precisely from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington to the fall of Baghdad in 2003. The aim of the attacks of 9/11 was to provoke the US into declaring war on the Islamic world and thereby "awakening" Muslims. "The first phase was judged by the strategists and masterminds behind al-Qaida as very successful," writes Hussein. "The battle field was opened up and the Americans and their allies became a closer and easier target." The terrorist network is also reported as being satisfied that its message can now be heard "everywhere."

We can say that Phase One has been accomplished. The Islamist propaganda machine has done well in convincing a large portion of the Muslim population into believing the West is waging war on Islam. The misquotes and missteps by the current Administration lead credence to this belief.

The Second Phase "Opening Eyes" is, according to Hussein's definition, the period we are now in and should last until 2006. Hussein says the terrorists hope to make the western conspiracy aware of the "Islamic community." Hussein believes this is a phase in which al-Qaida wants an organization to develop into a movement. The network is banking on recruiting young men during this period. Iraq should become the center for all global operations, with an "army" set up there and bases established in other Arabic states.

One can say they’ve been pretty successful at that. Case in point is the greater threat from home-grown terrorists rather than those infiltrating from abroad.

The Third Phase This is described as "Arising and Standing Up" and should last from 2007 to 2010. "There will be a focus on Syria," prophesies Hussein, based on what his sources told him. The fighting cadres are supposedly already prepared and some are in Iraq. Attacks on Turkey and -- even more explosive -- in Israel are predicted. Al-Qaida's masterminds hope that attacks on Israel will help the terrorist group become a recognized organization. The author also believes that countries neighboring Iraq, such as Jordan, are also in danger.

Some of this has come to fruition. Jordan has experienced al-Qaedaterrorism and Syria is noted for harboring terrorists and their plans for attacking Israel.

The Fourth Phase Between 2010 and 2013, Hussein writes that al-Qaida will aim to bring about the collapse of the hated Arabic governments. The estimate is that "the creeping loss of the regimes' power will lead to a steady growth in strength within al-Qaida." At the same time attacks will be carried out against oil suppliers and the US economy will be targeted using cyber terrorism.

We’ve seen signs of this. Saudi Arabia is now actively fighting insurgent elements in its country seeking to damage or destroy oil producing facilities and overthrow the Saudi government. Yemen is experiencing an up tick in Terrorist activity. We can only believe that this will get worse and spread to the other oil producing emirates in the peninsula. How successful will al-Qaeda be? Yet to be seen.

The Fifth Phase This will be the point at which an Islamic state, or caliphate, can be declared. The plan is that by this time, between 2013 and 2016, Western influence in the Islamic world will be so reduced and Israel weakened so much, that resistance will not be feared. Al-Qaida hopes that by then the Islamic state will be able to bring about a new world order.

The Sixth Phase Hussein believes that from 2016 onwards there will a period of "total confrontation." As soon as the caliphate has been declared the "Islamic army" it will instigate the "fight between the believers and the non-believers" which has so often been predicted by Osama bin Laden.

The Seventh Phase This final stage is described as "definitive victory." Hussein writes that in the terrorists' eyes, because the rest of the world will be so beaten down by the "one-and-a-half billion Muslims," the caliphate will undoubtedly succeed. This phase should be completed by 2020, although the war shouldn't last longer than two years.

So, how realistic is the 7 phases? The Spiegel article has its doubts.

Nevertheless, there is no way the scenario he depicts can be seen as a plan which al-Qaida can follow step by step. The terrorist network just doesn't work like that anymore. The significance of the central leadership has diminished and its direct commands have lost a great deal of importance. The supposed master plan for the years 2000 to 2020 reads in parts more like a group of ideas cobbled together in retrospect, than something planned and presented in advance. And not to mention the terrorist agenda is simply unworkable: the idea that al-Qaida could set up a caliphate in the entire Islamic world is absurd. The 20-year plan is based mainly on religious ideas. It hardly has anything to do with reality -- especially phases four to seven.

This analysis is wrong. Saying that the plan is absurd because it’s based on religious ideas shows a deep lack of understanding. Ideologies that have a strong belief component – religious or secular – is what drives them to success until they confront an ideology that is as strong and there’s. And over the last year there have been mumblings and debates from the Islamic World of where the next Caliphate will be centered.

As for the ‘Islamic Army’, I have said in posts before that the tactic of terrorism will have to eventually lead to the creation of a regular conventional army if the Islamists want to achieve ultimate victory over the West.

What is interesting is that major attacks against the West are not even mentioned by Fouad Hussein. Terrorism here cannot be ignored -- but it seems these attacks simply supplement the larger aim of setting up an Islamic caliphate. Attacks such as those in New York, Madrid and London would in this case not be ends in themselves, but rather means to a achieve a larger purpose -- steps in a process of increasing insecurity in the West.

In other words, insurgents who use terrorist tactics can not win the war themselves. To do that, like in every war before this, you must occupy enemy territory to win and impose your ideology on the population. That means putting boots on the ground. Like all other wars, there will be a theater of battle. That theater stretches from North Africa through the Middle East through south-central Asia to Southeast Asia and Malaysia. Some Islamic nation or nations will lead the alliance in this war of fronts.

So we are left with an interesting phased development. How well it’s executed is yet to be seen.

It seems that the MSM is in stage one: DENIAL. From the Huffington Post. (I'm holding my nose.)

Nine years ago, when FoxNews sprinted past CNN to become America's number one news network, I attributed its ratings gains to the election of George Bush and the triumph of Fox-watching conservatives. I figured conservatives would be savoring their victory while liberals were averting their eyes in disgust. For the next eight years, I measured political sentiment in the United States by comparing the size of the FoxNews audience with the combined size of the CNN/MSNBC audience. In this space, I even predicted, with reasonable accuracy, the percent by which Barack Obama won the election based on the split in the news audience.

Hmm... Could what follows be a portend of the future?

Now, seven months after Barack Obama's victory, CNN's ratings have gone down the drain. From May of last year to May of this year, CNN lost 22% of its total primetime audience. MSNBC was down 2%, while FoxNews was up 24%.

In the key advertising demographic (25-54), Fox was up 31%, CNN was down 37% and MSNBC was down 26%. In hard numbers, Fox had 109,000 more viewers than last year while CNN lost 113,000. CNN averaged fewer than 200,000 25-54 viewers in primetime. Even MSNBC averaged more viewers than that.

Total day was nearly as bad, with Fox up 24% and CNN down 7%. MSNBC was down 2% in total viewing. Fox is beating CNN almost two-to-one in most categories.

There's no need to throw any more numbers at you--Fox is gaining, CNN is wilting. Why is this happening when the country still seems about 58-42 in favor of Obama? My best guess is the passion of those who detest Democrats, liberals, and in particular, Barack Obama.

Yes. Please inform us. Enquiring people want to know.

Conservatives seem so angry at their loss, so ready to blame Obama for all their problems that almost 400,000 more of them are watching FoxNews this year than they did last year. I think they turn to Fox for comfort and confirmation. They need to hear the ranters and ravers tell them that it's not their fault, it's all because of those "Socialist Democrats." I have believed for years that it's "comfort and confirmation" that drove conservatives to talk radio. Now it's television, too.

I had thought better of the television audience, particularly younger viewers who tended to watch CNN and MSNBC. But even that's gone now--Fox leads in 18-49 year-olds.

Here are the best excuses I can think of: maybe a lot of middle-of-the-roaders have just tuned out on all the cable news noise. Maybe other people have better things to do with their lives than listen to pandering pundits.

Including the pandering pundits and supposed journalists of the MSM.

Maybe more generous souls accept that Obama's doing the best he can in a very tough job, and they don't want to hear the details because they know the stars are not shining on America right now.

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA from Lou Pritchett

Lou Pritchett is one of corporate America 's true li ving legends- an acclaimed author, dynamic teacher and one of the world's highest rated speakers. Successful corporate executives everywhere recognize him as the foremost leader in change management. Lou changed the way America does business by creating an audacious concept that came to be known as "partnering." Pritchett rose from soap salesman to Vice-President, Sales and Customer Development for Procter and Gamble and over the course of 36 years, made corporate history.

AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA

Dear President Obama:

You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me.

You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.

You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support.

You scare me becauseyou did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.

You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.

You scare me because you ha ve never had military experience, thus don't understand it at its core.

You scare me because you lack humility and 'class', always blaming others.

You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned yourself with radical extremists who hate America and you refuse to publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail.

You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the 'blame America ' crowd and deliver this message abroad.

You scare me because you want to change America to a European style country where the governmen t sector dominates instead of the private sector.

You scare me because you want to replace our health care system with a government controlled one.

You scare me because you prefer 'wind mills' to responsibly capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves.

You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose that lays the golden egg which provides the highest standard of living in the world.

You scare me because you have begun to use 'extortion'= tactics against certain banks and corporations.

You scare me because your own political party shrinks from challenging you on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals.

You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider opposing points of view from intelligent people.

You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both omnipotent and omniscient.

You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do.

You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the Limbaughs, Hannitys, O'Relllys and Becks who offer opposing, conservative points of view.

You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.

Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably not feel safe in writ ing a similar letter in 8 years.

Saturday, June 06, 2009

The Greatest Generation

The ‘Greatest Generation’ that gave so much, to so many, is becoming so few.

What made this generation so great?

Was it the service and the self-sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of this generation to free the world from fascist tyranny?

Or was it the un-selfish generosity of rebuilding the world after its defeat while making no demands of homage from those who followed and prospered economically, politically, and culturally because of this generation’s sacrifices?

Or perhaps it was the strength steeled during the Depression Years that forged responsible adults and not whimpering victims?

Or was it the courage to face and defeat a second global tyranny in the form of communism by not bending to the perennial appeasers that were ever present throughout the lives of this generation?

Or perhaps it was the loyalty shown to not just his country but his commitment to marriage and instilling a set of values in children that who in turn cares for those in crisis and need?

All these and more made this generation one of greatness.

The values of self-respect, personal responsibility and the delight in the celebration of the rituals of life are hallmarks of a great generation.

Monday, June 01, 2009

Mr. Clarke Concerned that We Had a Shocking Response to 9-11

Just yesterday, Richard Clarke of the Washington Post wrote a hand-ringing article on how the Bush Administration overreacted to 9-11.

Basically, he, like all liberals, can’t see the forest before the tress and are unable to bring themselves to realize that our response to 9-11 was quite measured and very, very retrained.

I’ll get into that in a minute. But first let’s have Mr. Clarke pontificate.

Top officials from the Bush administration have hit upon a revealing new theme as they retrospectively justify their national security policies. Call it the White House 9/11 trauma defense.

"Unless you were there, in a position of responsibility after September 11, you cannot possibly imagine the dilemmas that you faced in trying to protect Americans," Condoleezza Rice said last month as she admonished a Stanford University student who questioned the Bush-era interrogation program. And in his May 21 speech on national security, Dick Cheney called the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, a "defining" experience that "caused everyone to take a serious second look" at the threats to America. Critics of the administration have become more intense as memories of the attacks have faded, he argued. "Part of our responsibility, as we saw it," Cheney said, "was not to forget the terrible harm that had been done to America."

I won’t bore you with the rest of his introduction. Here’s the meat of his issue.

Yet listening to Cheney and Rice, it seems that they want to be excused for the measures they authorized after the attacks on the grounds that 9/11 was traumatic. "If you were there in a position of authority and watched Americans drop out of eighty-story buildings because these murderous tyrants went after innocent people," Rice said in her recent comments, "then you were determined to do anything that you could that was legal to prevent that from happening again."

I have little sympathy for this argument. Yes, we went for days with little sleep, and we all assumed that more attacks were coming. But the decisions that Bush officials made in the following months and years -- on Iraq, on detentions, on interrogations, on wiretapping -- were not appropriate. Careful analysis could have replaced the impulse to break all the rules, even more so because the Sept. 11 attacks, though horrifying, should not have surprised senior officials. Cheney's admission that 9/11 caused him to reassess the threats to the nation only underscores how, for months, top officials had ignored warnings from the CIA and the NSC staff that urgent action was needed to preempt a major al-Qaeda attack.

Thus, when Bush's inner circle first really came to grips with the threat of terrorism, they did so in a state of shock -- a bad state in which to develop a coherent response. Fearful of new attacks, they authorized the most extreme measures available, without assessing whether they were really a good idea.

Shock? Lack of coherent response?

Well, Mr. Clark, let me tell you how non-liberal most Americans felt after 9-11. It wasn’t debilitating shock. It was revenge!

I remember it oh so well when my good old friend called me and asked me how I felt about the attacks. I send kill ‘em. He showed his true colors, and like Mr. Clarke, wanted to know what we must have done to them for them to do such a terrible act.

It was time to sit down and talk. I told him that was insufficient and hung up.

Now, Mr. Clarke, let me tell you what Bush and Cheney IN SHOCK did not do. What this country and its citizens DID NOT do.

We DID NOT have incidents where Muslims were attacked on the streets.

We DID NOT burn down Muslim establishments

We DID NOT close down Muslim organizations.

We DID NOT find and export Muslims here illegally back to their country.

We DID NOT find and send back Muslims preaching hate in this country back to their country for arrest and execution.

We DID NOT arrest and jail Muslims preaching sedition in this country.

We DID NOT demand that all Muslims be rounded up and put in concentration camps.

We DID NOT demand that Saudi Arabia close all its Muslim schools and mosques in this country.

We DID NOT burn down mosques in cities around the country.

We DID NOT demand our government nuke Medina or Mecca.

We DID NOT demand that we nuke Afghanistan.

You see, Mr, Clarke, Bush and Cheney were successful in restraining the American people from doing what many wanted to do. That kind of measured thinking does not come from reacting in shock.

Reacting in shock is a liberal trait. An inability to act, caught in the self-imposed restraint of your ideology with your eyes in the headlights like good little sheeple.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Demographic Jihad

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Telling Stories of Jihad and Freedom

Every culture has a story or a narrative that it lives by. Throughout history, cultural stories have come into conflict with each other many times resulting in war.

We have three major cultural narratives in conflict today - the secular narrative of freedom loving people, the socialist narrative of Marxism, and the theocratic narrative of Islam. Marxism is hardened in Cuba and North Korea, being slowly diluted in China, and having a comeback in Venezuela. For global impact, neither of these forms of Marxism at this time is overly threatening as a cultural narrative. Outside of the Marxist dictators in Africa and Venezuela, there is no real rush to embrace the Marxist narrative.

Islam, on the other hand, is a different story and the difference between their story and that of ours, the secular narrative of freedom is, well, telling.

But what about the narrative? Why is human freedom to be valued? Why is the rule of law important? Why is representative government a good thing? Why does the individual human being possess such worth? Why should we defend the weak? Why should we care for the orphan, the widow, the sick, and the elderly? When is anything worth dying for? Why do we love? What is our story?

Currently, our story is confused, divided, in disarray and in pieces. Political correctness and the practice of multiculturalism has stymied our efforts to forge a coherent story that we believe and what we show to the world.

And what about Islam?

Islam has one . . . a story, a narrative. In general, Islam's answers to these questions is quite different from the answers given by the West for most of its history. Bernard Lewis may have over-estimated the power of the West's commitment to freedom to overwhelm the attractiveness of the Muslim narrative in what he describes as its "Third Wave."

What’s so attractive about the Muslim narrative? I’m not taking about the militant from of Islam but the socio-political form. The one that’s on the march throughout the world today. And what of this “Third Wave”?

Let’s look at what’s attractive about the socio-political religion called Islam.What makes Islam tick? And what can we learn about it that will help us understand those that adhere to it and learn more about the threat it poses to the civilized world. Muslims claim that Islam is the world’s fastest growing religion. If true; why? What attracts so many converts from around the world to this belief system?

The answer can be found in two concepts: Decidophobia and a thirst for a Path to God.

Decidophobia is the morbid dread of making fateful decisions – an ostrich like defense that drives people to seek refuge from decisions in a religious or ideological conformity. The term was created by Walter Kaufman in his book ‘Without Guilt and Justice”.

The objective of the Decidophobic is to make one major decision, and only one major decision, so one does not have to make another major decision in his or her life ever again. One strategy is to join a religion or a movement. One that has a set of finely prescribed behaviors that circumscribe one’s actions and offers an earthly or heavenly reward for the true believer. If a person is adrift without personal bearings and can not function in a chaotic ethical and moral environment that is perceived to have no absolutes – much like we have today – he or she will seek a belief system that offers a safe haven in this storm of relativism.

Islam fills that void.

It is a strict religion that offers paradise and a sense of meaning in life to those who adhere to the simple pillars of its faith. Islam also presents to its followers a person whose life can be imitated and acts as a blue print to achieve the promise of paradise. But there is another form of ‘religion’ that is just as powerful and offers the reward of paradise here on earth. That is the belief in a strong secular ideology also led by a man to emulate – and even worship - and follow in his footsteps. Examples of these ideologies are Nazism with Hitler and Maoism with Mao Zedong.

Both of these belief systems are the answer to one suffering with Decidophobia. There is even an instruction manual for the Decidophobic that relieves him or her of any future personal decisions. The beliefs revealed and the instructions are clear in their ‘bibles’. Mein Kampf, Mao’s Little Red Book, and the Koran. These belief systems are now the Decidophobic’s community, their country that they dwell within surrounded by fellow citizens of their little nation.

And the word nation is not used lightly here.

Take Islam. The nation of Muslims is the nation of Islam – or the Ummah. Ever wonder why the Islamists are so vehement about nationalism as practiced today? Quite simple. It runs counter to the concept of the nation of Islam. A true Muslim can not be a citizen of two nations at once. Mohammed condemned the concept of nationalism in any and all forms. The jihadist condemnation of the World Soccer Cup is a case in point.

“Claiming that soccer plants the seeds of nationalism, and is therefore part of a "colonial crusader scheme" to divide Muslims and cause them to stray from the vision of a unified Islamic identity, the Jihadist website told readers: "The sad fact of the matter is that many Muslims have fallen for this new religion and they too carry the national flag.”

This might seem silly to us and we degrade those who hold such a looney idea but it fits nicely into Islam’s goal to stop Muslims from straying from their true nation, that of Islam. Which brings up the concept of the Path to God that dovetails perfectly with the Islamist view that the destruction of the secular world is the necessary first step in creating an Islamic utopia on earth.

Why are the Islamists so concerned with the secular view of the world? Yes, we say it’s because it conflicts with our secular story that promotes freedom and democracy and Islam can not coexist with it, etc. etc. But why? What are the religious grounds for this? That is to say, how can secularism be a threat to the Muslim’s path to God?

The Hindus have recognized for centuries four paths - or ways - to self-development and spiritual growth - the Way of Action, the Way of Love, the Way of Knowledge, and the Way of Mind Control or Meditation. Islam uses primarily the Way of Action. In the book entitled ‘The One Quest’ written by Claudio Naranjo, the two approaches to ‘right action’ are the one of discipline, duty, injunctions and restraint; and the other it’s direct opposite, the one of self-expression, self-trust, and unconstraint. In the latter case, freedom itself can lead to the goal of self-improvement of the spirit by providing the greatest opportunity for experience and choice.

Guess which ‘right action’ is the choice of Islam and why it’s current choice of the path to spiritual development will be extremely difficult to integrate into a world filled with the thirst for freedom? Yep – the approach of discipline, duty, injunctions and restraint – the direct opposite of what modern western style culture exhibits today.

Our modern day culture believes that self-improvement – at least in the physical realm - can only be achieved by the greatest opportunity for experience and personal choice, unrestricted by any discipline, duty, injunction or restraint. Taken to extremes, one approach leads to the restriction of everything, the other, the permissiveness of everything.

Clash of civilizations? You bet. Clash of paths to self-improvement? You bet.

The outlook is not good for any kind of integration of the two ‘approaches’. Take the way of action that demands discipline, duty, injunctions and restraint – that is, the removal of any and all physical world distractions (including the female body) and entities (nationalism) that would hinder the true believer’s goal of reaching paradise - and we have the Taliban. Allow freedom to disintegrate into license and we are left with the nihilism of Nietzsche.

One approach leads to a constipated, restricted, dead culture – Islam. The other to the chaos of relativism where moral equivalency, political correctness and multiculturalism prevent the perception of what’s right and what’s wrong. Neither extreme assists both the individual or society’s spirit reach its fullest potential.

Finally, both extreme belief systems, theocratic and secular, are two sides of the same coin. Islam sees religion and the state as one and the same. Their book of beliefs dictates how society should function. Secular extremism like Nazi Germany and Maoist China operated the same way. The leader’s belief and the function of the state were direct results of the ‘bibles’ of Mein Kampf and the Little Red Book.

The first wave dates from the very beginning of Islam, when the new faith spilled out of the Arabian Peninsula, where it was born, into the Middle East and beyond. It was then that Muslims conquered Syria, Palestine, Egypt and North Africa — all at that time part of the Christian world — and went beyond into Europe. There, they conquered a sizable part of southwestern Europe, including Spain, Portugal and southern Italy, all of which became part of the Islamic world, and even crossed the Pyrenees and occupied for a while parts of France.

The second wave was conducted not by Arabs and Moors but by Turks and Tartars. In the mid-13th century, the Mongol conquerors of Russia were converted to Islam. The Turks, who had already conquered Anatolia, advanced into Europe and in 1453 they captured the ancient Christian citadel of Constantinople. They conquered a large part of the Balkans, and for a while ruled half of Hungary. Twice they reached as far as Vienna, to which they laid siege in 1529 and again in 1683. Barbary corsairs from North Africa went to Iceland — the uttermost limit — and to several places in Western Europe, including notably a raid on Baltimore (the original one, in Ireland) in 1631.

The third wave is taking a different form: terror and migration. The subject of terror has been discussed frequently and in great detail. What I want to address here is the other aspect, which is of more particular relevance to Europe today — the question of migration.

Where do we stand now? Is it third time lucky? It is not impossible. Muslim immigrants have certain clear advantages. They have fervor and conviction, which in most Western countries are either weak or lacking.

It’s not that our story is weak, but how we practicing it.

[Muslims] are self-assured of the rightness of their cause, whereas we spend most of our time in self-denigration and self-abasement. They have loyalty and discipline, and perhaps most important of all, they have demography. The combination of natural increase and migration that is producing major population changes could lead within the foreseeable future to significant majorities in at least some European cities or even countries.

Our challenge today is to reach back in time and tell the coherent beneficial story that freedom loving people have fought for and attained over the last several centuries.

But we also have some advantages, the most important of which are knowledge and freedom. The appeal of genuine modern knowledge in a society that, in the more distant past, had a long record of scientific and scholarly achievement is obvious. They are keenly and painfully aware of their relative backwardness and welcome the opportunity to rectify it.

Less obvious but also powerful is the appeal of freedom. In the past, in the Islamic world the word freedom was not used in a political sense. Freedom was a legal concept. You were free if you were not a slave. They did not use freedom and slavery as a metaphor for good and bad government, as we have done for a long time in the Western world.

But the idea of freedom in its Western interpretation is making headway. It is becoming more and more understood, more and more appreciated and more and more desired. It is perhaps in the long run our best hope, perhaps even our only hope, of surviving this developing struggle.

The one place where we can most definitely lose the war on terror is on the battlefield of ideas. Who would believe that a combination of pure hatred and medieval superstition would provide the most appealing ideology of the 21st century?

What is our counter? The ideology of freedom, obviously. But do we really believe in it anymore? That is hard to believe on a continent which in the previous century was ravaged by the deadly poisons fascism and socialism, where everybody now seems to know what they are against (America, Jews, capitalism, immigrants, whatever), but there is little left to unite us when we are forced to decide what we are fighting for.

The one place where we can most definitely lose the war on terror is on the battlefield of ideas. Who would believe that a combination of pure hatred and medieval superstition would provide the most appealing ideology of the 21st century? What is our counter? The ideology of freedom, obviously. But do we really believe in it anymore?

Or do we believe in what Janis Joplin said, “Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.”

Before we get to that point, I hope we can tell our story in ways that will halt and push back the strong global story of the Islamists.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Never Forget

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Recipe for an Islamist Global Insurgency

On our last Friday's Gathering Storm Radio Show we discussed with Mr. Frank Salvato whether we were winning the war against Islamism. He said, we were not. We were losing the real jihad. The jihad not covered by the MSM. The real jihad misuderstood by the majority of the free world.

The political jihad - or what's known as the 'soft' jihad. They are using a very succcesful recipe for world domination which is one part intimidation, one part infiltration, one part disinformation and two parts of the appeasing and apologizing of the ‘useful idiots’.

3 ) Alienate Western democratic governments from their own people through the paranoia surrounding terrorist events and the culture of fear.

4 ) Alienate the Jews from the world until such time that Israel can be destroyed, especially through “world” bodies like the United Nations and by fomenting anti-Semetism in the West.

5 ) Squash the will of the American and European people to fight the jihad longterm by using the “Death by 1000 Cuts” strategy in Iraq and wherever else it can be maintained perpetually using martyrs, Al Qaeda, etc. Use terrorism, sectarian violence, open jihad and “good cop, bad cop” strategies.

6 ) Populate all nations with as many Muslims as possible and slowly usurp their populations, especially in low-Western birth nations throughout Europe. Increase the Muslim birthrate whenever possible and especially marry non-Islamic women and “revert” them as a priority.

7 ) Lobby for changes to laws in all nations to better serve the jihad through the perpetuation of myths like “Islamophobia.” Ally with the far Left to accomplish this whenever prudent. Fabricate and instigate media events in order to sway public opinion also (i.e. the US Airways Imams).

8 ) “Revert” first the lowliest elements in Western nations like their criminals and ill-educated, then once the “culture of fear” sets in, perpetuate further “reversions” to Islam through political overtures like those used by Ahmadinejad in his letters. Use college campuses, too, and prey upon the young, liberal idealists who are especially ignorant of the teachings of the Qur’an but will quickly drink up the fight for the “enlightened barbarians” from the Middle East.

9 ) Kill as many of the stubborn “polytheists” that are left over as necessary in order to further the ends of 1-7 and especially #8. Use of WMDs, poisons, outright murder — as long as the “good cop, bad cop” strategy can be maintained by the ruling Islamic leaders to keep the world entangled in political red tape, it’s all fair.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Quo Vadis America?

I’ve been thinking. A dangerous thing, I know.

I’ve been at this blogging thing for a few years now; many other have been at it much longer. I started out like all of us, I guess, with the idea that by educating others to the threat from Islam we could gain their support. After all, it was Einstein who said history was a race between education and catastrophe.

In my opinion, this race will be won by catastrophe.

Looking at what we have elected to lead us and the MSM becoming the propaganda arm of that leadership, I have come to the conclusion that there is little we can do now to ‘educate’ what’s left of the masses.

So, we wait for the catastrophe.

The issue then is Quo Vadis – which way does this country go after that.

Let me segue for a moment and compare today with the decade before WWII. That decade began with the American public having little interest in the current political problem in Europe and Asia. Who cared if some nutcase by the name of Hitler and another nutcase by the name of Tojo were making insane remarks about the Third Reich and the Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Most Americans didn’t care what happened in Austria, Czechoslovakia or some place called Mongolia.

They weren’t our concern in the early days of the 1930s. We had our own problems namely the Great Depression.

But over the years, as Americans were polled and they began to be educated by the events in Europe and in China, public opinion slowly changed. But an Administration that knew the nature of the enemy – fascism – and knew it would have to be confronted someday did not have the popular support to enter the war against the German and Japanese regimes.

That all changed on December 7th, 1941. After that date our country found its voice and as one, went to war to defeat the global threat to freedom.

Now fast forward 70 years.

Today, instead of a growing understanding of the threat facing us, the general public is growing less knowledgeable to the threat to their freedoms. And instead of an Administration that sees the threat, we have one that ignores it.

Over the 10 years from 1930 to 1940, America moved towards recognizing the threat. Over the last 10 years, America has gone in the opposite direction and has learned to ignore the threat – even after 9/11.

So what happens when the inevitable catastrophe occurs?

America can go in one of two ways.

In the 1930s, we learned that our freedoms were at risk from tyrants and we had a government that saw that risk and acted on the cry from the public “Remember Pearl Harbor!” The general public demanded action. Demanded retaliation. Demanded that their freedoms be protected.

And the government complied.

I fear that this will not be the response when our catastrophe occurs - one that kills tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of Americans. I fear the response to public demand for action, retaliation and protection will go unheeded by the current leadership with their own idea of who the real enemy is. And when the public see that their leadership will not take the proper action, many will take that action upon themselves.

The response from such leadership we have today would be to turn on those carrying through on the necessary action to protect our freedoms. It will use the constitutional ‘crisis’ to impose draconian restrictions on our freedoms to protect the ‘victims’ who perpetrated the biggest bloodbath in American history.

There will be a choice and a choice will have to be made.

Will the current Administration respond as its predecessor did 70 years ago? Or will it turn on its citizens because deep down inside they refuse to recognize the enemy and fail to protect us from it.

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